This morning I met my sister the ex-mayor's wife to sort through some more stuff in Mom's house. The Pony went along to provide beast of burden services. We had planned to spend two hours, because the temperatures were approaching 97, with the heat index over 100. It took the air conditioner a while to bring down the ambient temperature.
As with every single time I think we are going to whiz through three or four tasks, we don't even get done with one. After almost four hours, we had only sorted out pictures on the walls, the mantle decorations, and assorted papers from a couple of stacks. Always, we are mired down by the sheer attention to detail Sis gives every single coin, every single appliance instruction manual from 1982, every single Bible from a stack of nearly 15. Let the record show that Mom was not a holy roller. She went to church most Sundays. Gave a donation. And that was that. But somehow, she had acquired a plethora of Bibles.
Sis pulled them out one by one. "Oh, we gave them each a Bible when they were baptized. Here they are." She read the inscriptions. "Here are two big Bibles." I recognized one with a white cover. "Look. Which one do you want of these? Here's a Masonic Bible."
"Okay. I'll take that one. I'll give it to #1 to keep with his other Masonic stuff from Dad."
Sis went back to Bible-dumping. "I'll take this one. And this one. Do you want one of these? It's easier to understand this version." Obviously, Sis was not even trying to hide her belief that I was an imbecile.
"Okay. I'll take that one with the black cover." That certainly narrowed it down.
"Look! Here's a whole stack of little New Testaments! Do you want one?"
"I'll take a green one."
"Grandma tried to give me one of those one time, I think." The Pony was relaxing on the couch until we needed heavy lifting.
Sis grabbed another stack of books. One was a cardboard collection of paperbacks. Like The Pony has of the Little House on the Prairie books. She picked it up by the spine, and all of the individual books slid to the floor.
"JESUS CHRIST!" Not Sis. The Pony.
"PONY! We don't say that! What's wrong with you?"
"But Mom! Look!"
Sis held up the books and fanned them out so I could see the covers. On the top of each one was 'JESUS CHRIST,' then a picture, then a subtitle.
The Pony calls it as he sees it.
2 comments:
A subtitle? What was it? (John Prine, if you're a fan, wrote a song called "Jesus: The Missing Years.")
Sioux,
The Pony can't remember that part, and I was too far away to read it. He thinks it was something like, "After the Resurrection." I asked if, perhaps, one was "Jesus: The Early Years," but he could not confirm nor deny.
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